With a stricter standard for sanitation brought by the COVID-19 health pandemic, the Unity Health Hospital and Medical Center is now using LightStrike robots from Xenex to clean and disinfect its rooms.

“My main goal is to keep people from getting sick from the hospital environment,” says Meghann Haddock, RN and Infection Prevention Supervisor of Unity Health. That being said, the LightStrike robots are the germ-zapping solution Haddock landed on to prevent any hospital-acquired infection amongst patients, visitors, and employees.

While doctors and nurses do rounds in this hospital in Searcy, Arkansas, the LightStrike robots also go room-to-room to kill deadly pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2, MRSA, C. diff, and VRE. “We use those on all of the nursing units. We use those in the operating room. We also use these robots in common areas like break rooms, medication rooms, things like that,” shares Haddock.

The LightStrike robots are designed with wheels, a cylindrical body, and a raisable top. When it’s turned on, the top raises up and emits its UV light system to kill any virus and bacteria within its wavelength. The robots automatically shut down and move to the next room once it’s done cleaning and disinfecting a room.

Haddock notes how these robots and their technology are effective in decreasing the infection rates in Unity Health, “Once we started using these, it’s really decreased those numbers.” The LightStrike robots use a patented Pulsed Xenon UV light system that deactivates pathogens in an area while not causing any damage to the machinery or materials inside the room.

These LightStrike robots definitely serve as an extra step in giving people peace of mind when entering a hospital, especially at a time when extra measures and precautions for sanitation are needed. Truly, the advancements in robot technology are proving to be more and more beneficial in the hospital sector, from assisting doctors in surgeries, patient care, and now even sanitation as seen by these LightStrike robots in Unity Health, Searcy.

Robotic surgery is an advanced procedure that allows doctors and surgeons to perform complex surgeries through the help of surgical robots or robot assistance. It allows doctors and surgeons to operate with heightened precision and accuracy, which reduces the surgical trauma of the patient being operated on and gives them a faster healing period.

Edge Medical Robotics Co., Ltd., a surgical robot platform company based in Shenzhen, China, has developed an endoscopic surgical robot that can help in assisting specially trained doctors to perform complex procedures and operations in the field of gynecology.

The China-developed endoscopic surgical robot to assist in gynecological operations is a major breakthrough in both medical technology and the domestic surgical robot industry.

Clinical trials for these highly specialized robot-assisted operations are only being rolled out in the field of gynecology and obstetrics for the time being. The select hospitals beginning these surgical robot clinical trials are The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) General Hospital in Beijing and the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University in central China’s Henan Province.

The Future of China’s Domestic Surgical Robots Industry

With the development of domestic surgical robots by Edge Medical, Ji Mei, a gynecologist in the First Affiliated Hospital, is hopeful that it can greatly impact the potential for primary hospitals to start carrying it out as it is more cost-effective than its foreign counterparts.

The director of the gynecological department of Chinese PLA General Hospital, Meng Yuanguang, shares the same sentiment as Ji Mei. Meng Yuanguang shares how crucial these self-developed domestic surgical robots can be in providing higher quality medical services in primary hospitals for patients.

Although Wang Jianchen, the CEO of Edge Medical Robotics Co., Ltd., points out how there is still a delay in the development of technology and surgical robots in China due to factors such as high costs, limited implementation in few hospitals and departments, and longtime foreign competitors dominating the field, this may also indicate the growth potential of their domestic surgical robots industry once these impediments have been solved.

On that note, Business Wire reported that China’s Medical Robot Industry will be worth $2.49 billion by 2026. Should the clinical trials of these self-developed domestic surgical robots be a success, we may look at more robotic surgeries to be developed and rolled out in other fields and departments at primary hospitals in China. As a result, this can possibly contribute more to the estimated figure, but more importantly, provide top-notch medical services that are highly accessible to the public.

Atrium Health’s Levine Children’s Hospital is enhancing treatment for its young patients by using innovative robotic technology. The robot, Gita, assists hospital workers with the distribution of gifts, prizes, and other contributions to pediatric patients without the need for human contact.

Meredith Dean, manager of the hospital’s Seacrest Studios, a media facility supported by the Ryan Seacrest Foundation, claims that Levine Children’s is the first hospital in the country to deploy the Gita robot. Each robot costs around $3,600 and currently, there are three Gitas in the hospital named after characters from a famous book. The red one is named Ron, the blue one is Harry, and the last one is named Hermione, which is gray.

Dean stated that using these robots is particularly effective in the rehabilitation unit and it encourages youngsters to walk more. Long-term cancer patients, she noted, often light up when Gita pays a surprise visit.

Because these kids have never seen something like this before, they simply become so excited about something different than their normal day, Dean explained. It appears to be enhancing the general attitude of patients and families in a really difficult circumstance, as well as staff.

She stated that there may be a potential to obtain additional Gita robots, but for the time being, three are plenty for the medical personnel.

The Gita Robots

Gita is a robot that is designed to follow humans and carry roughly 40 pounds of cargo. Piaggio Fast Forward, a division of the Italian firm well known for its Vespa scooter, designed it. According to Dean, they also were frequently employed in airports for food deliveries.

The Gita robot has four cameras on the front that detect human bodies and can follow them while avoiding obstructions. She said that since the robot does not save information or footage, the hospital does not have to worry about patient confidentiality.

Dean stated that the Gita robot has been in testing for roughly a month. The only problem the robot has is it cannot tread backward. The robot is also not autonomous and requires human intervention to function.